The first Polar flight ever of a pax airline was Cathay Pacific A340 Service from Toronto (YYZ) To Hong Kong (HKG) it was the first polar route, and was used on a trial basis to see how well this type of flight would do, after a few flights the route returned to the regular YYZ-ANC-HKG.

"Clive Beddoe says he favours competition, but his actions do not support that idea." Robert Milton - CEO Air Canada

Condor German Airlines, FRA-Whitehorse (YXY)-Fairbanks (FAI)-FRA with a 763ER. Similarly FRA-ANC. Not to mention many cargo carriers between FAI/ANC and Europe.

Maybe I'm missing something, what is so special about these new polar HKG flights other than their long duration. Commerical flights have been traversing, and for that matter serving communities in the high arctic for many years.

DL staged a flight test JFK-PEK-ATL using a 777 a couple months back. No revenue pax of course.

On October 19, 2001 Air Canada will start nonstop flights from Vancouver to Delhi which are scheduled to operate over the "polar route" -- it will be a 4-times-a-week seasonal service that will run through April of 2002.